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Some people understandably like to know who they’re dealing with. What qualifications do you have to have to call yourself a Design Guru anyway? And just what does “Room Fu" mean? Robin Callan, Room Fu's resident design guru, explains: I call myself the design guru simply because I think it’s funny…plus “interior decorator" sounds like a woman with a coif peddling chintz, and “interior designer" just...well, it just felt a bit stuffy. My title and my company name never fail to get a chuckle from people hearing them for the first time, and I really enjoy that. As for my design background and qualifications, I took a round-about way of getting into this business. I earned a BFA in graphic design from the University of North Texas in Denton in 1991. After graduating, I moved to New York City with four crazy Texans and began my creative career as the Marketing and Promotions Designer for Worth Magazine, designing everything from Absolut ads to special events invitations and collateral materials to premium items, such as a Swatch watch—which in the guru’s day *ahem* was quite a popular brand. A few well-placed Hula-Hoops (long story) and I landed a dream job as Creative Director for Golden Books’ Entertainment Group, overseeing the design and production of all licensed products for Golden Books’ trademarked characters, including Underdog, The Lone Ranger, Lassie, Little Lulu, and Pat the Bunny. It was a ton of fun. In 1999 I decided to move back to Texas and be closer to family again. I purchased a century-old historic house and put my decade-long obsession with home improvement and design shows to the task of renovating the place inside and out, doing a lot of the work myself. Upon touring my house, people started asking me to give them design advice on their own homes. After a few of those successful consultations, I realized there were a lot of people out there watching TLC and HGTV who wanted design advice but for many reasons did not want to hire a conventional interior design firm. In 2003 I started Room Fu to fill that niche. Since then I’ve helped hundreds of homeowners find solutions to a wide variety of design challenges, both big and small. Many people ask, “What is Room Fu’s design style?" Really, that all depends on the client. If you take a look at my photo gallery you’ll see everything from industrial, mod, traditional, and vintage styles. Rather than imposing a style onto a client, I try to enhance the client’s own style. What you will see over and over in the pictures in my gallery are clean and simple rooms with interesting details. Okay, the biggest question of all is, “What does ‘Room Fu’ mean and how did you come up with that?" First of all, credit where credit is due—my husband thought of it. Basically, since I thought I would primarily work with do-it-yourselfers (DIYers), the name came from the idea of “self defense against bad design." In reality, DIYers only make up a fraction of my client roster, but because the name is so odd people have more of a tendency to remember it.
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